Ospreys and the 16th Man

Forgive a bit of a rant on this one – as will become rather obvious I am sure I am somewhat of an Ospreys fan.

But to me this is getting silly now. Whilst there is obviously precedent in it happening with England in the 2003 World Cup there has to be levels of accountability – and surely the first stop has to be with the officials? Now I missed what Alan Lewis apparently ranted to the 4th official (I am told it was disgraceful but I was at the game so couldn’t here what he had to say) but let us be honest – a player taking the pitch should have been told by someone he is allowed back on.

I find it very unlikely Byrne ran on without being told that – meaning, as Scott Johnson said, there was a breakdown in communications somewhere. At that point is it the Ospreys or the officials fault? Personally I say officials but either way it wasn’t, imo, cheating but a simple error.

16 Men

Now Leicester officials (though to give him his dues, Richard Cockrill is saying that he isn’t interested in all this) are saying that having a 16th man on the field stopped them scoring a certain try. Possibly, though personally I doubt it – if Byrne hadn’t been on the field then Hook would still have been playing 15 and would have it covered too.

But for me there was a 16th man on that field at times – for Leicester, Alan Lewis. Now I am not talking about the breakdown reffing (I felt he was poor there, pinging the Ospreys for coming in from the side whilst ignoring Leicester. No, what I am talking about is he actually seemed to be playing as a dummy runner for them, or at least a linebacker.

Amazingly, in the move Leicester are referring to, Alan Lewis managed, if memory serves, to get in the way of our defenders TWICE, without whistling. I especially remember him blocking off one of our players as the ball bounced loose (think it was Paul James) so instead of us winning the ball they grabbed it and made significant headway to our tryline – if I am remembering when this move happened correctly it was this moment that Byrne intervened and they are complaining about.

So forgive me if I lack a care for the Ospreys having 50 seconds (not several minutes thank you BBC) of 16 players, but given the reffing standards from Alan Lewis (who, inexplicably, has been winning plaudits in the press before this game – press members who obviously don’t like to see breakdowns contested) I am inclined to say that the Ospreys should have had longer with 16 men to even things up.

I don’t like complaining about the ref soccer style but in the stands there was a general feeling that it was taking a lot of effort not to boo the ref.